In November 2023, the Cosmos Hub community approved the contentious proposal 848, which reduced the maximum inflation rate of the native token ATOM to 10% from 20%. At the time, ATOM’s actual inflation rate stood at 14%.
The proposal was expected to fall through. However, just before the deadline, there was a surge of votes and with some validators changing their stance, the proposal passed with 41.1% votes. A significant portion of the voters — 38.5% — voted against it.
A day after the proposal was passed, Cosmos co-founder Jae Kwon, who was opposed to the voting results, decided to fork the Cosmos Hub to create AtomOne. In a bid to decentralize the decision-making related to the genesis of AtomOne, All in Bits, the company run by Kwon, is launching GovGen.
What is GovGen?
Kwon told CryptoSlate:
“The concept of GovGen was born out of the need to assess the sentiments of the dissenters to the Cosmos Hub’s proposition 848.”
GovGen is an independent, governance-only chain scheduled to launch on Feb. 27. Distinct from the AtomOne Hub, GovGen is a fork of the Cosmos Hub, with some minor modifications. Its purpose is to “decentralize the Genesis of the AtomOne chain,” according to Onbloc, a blockchain software development company supporting the infrastructure development of AtomOne.
Basically, holders of the GOVGEN token, a non-transferrable staking token, can vote on proposals on the GovGen chain to decide AtomOne’s initial chain parameters and token distribution. GOVGEN token will be distributed to all ATOM holders who voted or inherited via delegation a ‘NO’ or ‘NO_WITH_VETO’ vote.
Since GovGen holders will decide the specifics of the AtomOne chain before its launch, all who participate in the initiative will become founding members of AtomOne.
Kwon said:
“With GovGen, we aim to demonstrate how we could or *should* use governance voting choices from delegators and validators to help shape blockchain development, whether that may involve splitting or forking any proof-of-stake blockchain in order to preserve its constitutional character or proposing and introducing new innovations.”
Initially, the GovGen chain will launch with 30 validators.
Why is Cosmos forking?
According to All in Bits, proposal 848 “places ATOM on the path to becoming a monetary token.” This, according to the company, is a “significant shift from the established design of the ATOM staking token that has kept the ecosystem secure since its inception.”
According to Kwon,
“The results of that prop 848 vote appear to indicate that a significant minority of the Cosmos Hub community wishes to preserve the security properties of Cosmos Hub’s revolutionary [ATOM] staking model.”
In a blog post explaining its opposition to the proposal, All in Bits noted that the proposal may “threaten” the “foundational pillars” of Cosmos. In other words, dissenters of proposal 848, who form a significant minority, believe the proposal threatens the security of the ecosystem, giving rise to the need for a fork.
Therefore, AtomOne will not compete with Cosmos Hub, but will “offer a bridge to make the Cosmos Hub more secure,” according to All in Bits (AIB).